The Top 7 SEO Trends That Will Dominate 2015

Jayson DeMers
, ContributorI demystify SEO and online marketing for business owners.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The SEO industry in 2014 is virtually unrecognizable from that of 2011 and earlier, and this coming year we’ll see even more changes in best practices for the industry and how we execute SEO campaigns.

Earlier this year I wrote about The Top 7 SEO Trends Dominating 2014, but as we quickly approach 2015, I wanted to take a look at what’s changed in recent months and what we can expect over the next year.

Following are my top 7 SEO predictions for 2015. Please be sure to add yours in the comments below!

1. SEO will become focused on technical elements while content marketing will drive search rankings

In the not-so-distant past, the terms content marketing and SEO were often used interchangeably. This isn’t surprising given the enormous overlap between the two. However, throughout 2015, SEO will increasingly be seen as encompassing the technical components of online marketing, whereas content marketing will be the key driver of search engine rankings.

SEO will remain an invaluable subset of content marketing, dealing with keyword research, meta tags, indexing issues and penalty recovery, while content marketing will become the primary influencer of search visibility. Businesses that continue to focus on SEO without having a strong content plan in place will fail, and will need to shift their focus to the creation and distribution of high-quality content in order to achieve significant search engine visibility.

2. Sites that aren’t optimized for user intent and mobile SEO will fail

In 2014, it has become increasingly obvious that Google is placing a great deal of importance on mobile usability. We’ve seen Google testing mobile-friendly icons next to search results, as well as adding a mobile usability section in Google Webmaster accounts so users can see how their site performs on mobile devices. We also know that for over a year now, Google has been penalizing sites that generate errors for mobile users. For more on this, see my article, Is Mobile Usability Now a Search Ranking Factor?